Law Commons^™

"Cradled On The Sea": Positive Images Of Prison And Theories Of Punishment, Martha Grace Duncan

Faculty Articles

This interdisciplinary study investigates the meanings of incarceration through an analysis of prison memoirs and novels. It argues that many prisoners and nonprisoners exhibit powerful positive associations to penal confinement. The Article draws on psychoanalysis, philosophy, and sociol­ogy to account for the various kinds of attraction that prison exerts. The Article also considers the interrelationships between the analysis of the posi­tive images and three traditional purposes of punishment: rehabilitation, deterrence, and retribution.

Unpleasant Facts: The Supreme Court's Response To Empirical Research On Capital Punishment, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Book Chapters

Slowly at first, and then with accelerating frequency, the courts have begun to examine, consider, and sometimes even require empirical data. From 1960 to 1981, for example, use of the terms "statistics" and "statistical" in Federal District and Circuit Court opinions increased by almost 15 times.1 Of course, citation rates indicate only that a topic is considered worthy of mention, not that it is taken seriously, or even understood. Nonetheless, in a number of areas, such as jury composition and employment discrimination, the courts have come to rely on empirical data as a matter of course.

In the last 25 …